


Ghosts of the Past

by ValentineRevenge



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Complete, Delusions, F/M, Gen, Serial Killers, War, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 07:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValentineRevenge/pseuds/ValentineRevenge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does life have it out for Gerard, ripping away everyone he holds dear? Or is it just in his head?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1930

This will be a 4 part story. I put my ipod on shuffle the other night, and these were the first 4 songs that came out, and I challenged myself to make a story out of them. It might help to listen to the song each part is based off while reading the part. This part is based upon The Gaslight Anthem's song "1930"

**June 27th, 1930**

The house stands quiet. 5 year old Mikey and 8 year old Gerard are supposed to be asleep. Instead, they're engrossed in listening to a fierce argument between their parents carried out in low tones. There's something strange about it. Their parents nearly never argue. The hostile undertones don't miss the attention of the boys crouched in the shadows, halfway up the stairs. They strain their ears towards the sound, yet aren't able to make out most of the individual words, just mostly tones.

Then, a noise that is unmistakable. A loud crack, like that of someone being struck right across the face. There was a feminine cry of pain. Mikey slipped his hand into his elder brother's. He was frightened, unsure o what was going on. Gerard gave a comforting squeeze, his eyes not straying from the den's closed door.

He didn't have to wait long. "What the hell is wrong with you?!?" His mother shrieked. She was answered with a shotgun blast. There was a thud as her body hit the floor. Gerard shot up, half-carrying, half dragging his younger brother up the stairs. Just as they made it to the second floor, they heard the door to the den creak open. Mikey was shoved into his bed and safely cocooned into the blankets by his brother. "What about Mommy" He asked. Gerard looked at him, not knowing what to say, only "I dunno, just stay here."

Gerard shut the door. He could hear his father's heavy tread onthe stairs, taking the steps leisurely one by one. He practically flew to his own room, hiding below the blankets. And not a moment too soon, for just as he closed his eyes and began to steady his breathing, he heard the familiar footsteps coming down the hall. His door slowly opened.

He barely dared to breath, until the door closed. But sleep was a long time in coming.

Mr. Way remarried in the years following his wife's death, after playing the part of a bereaved man. But Gerard knew better, and constantly reminded Mikey that their father had murdered their mother in cold blood after a drunken argument. Secretly, they hoped the new wife would come to the same end. Everything about her was fake, her hair, her smile, but worst, her personality.

**June 27th, 1935**

Gerard and Mikey sat in the backyard, nearly pitching a fit. Their stepmother had made a poor excuse for pancakes that morning. They choked it down, in an attempt to avoid further problems. But inside, they were seething. "How dare she made that for us! Only mom used to make those for us!" Gerard yelled.

"You're right." Mikey agreed, before adding, "You know, nobody these days can make pancakes, or tell stories like mom used to."

"You're right, Mikes. Nobody these days can." Gerard said. YOu could certainly catch the sadness in his voice, barely veiled. Nobody seemed to be able to measure up to the dead woman in their eyes. But it was pure sacrilege to try to pretend that anyone could ever replace her. Even so, Gerard couldn't help but hate Mikey for being the splitting image of his dead mother.

It scared him, because he shouldn't be feeling this way. Mikey was the last thing he had in this world. It would kill Gerard to lose his little brother, yet in his mind, he fantasized killing his brother. One day, he would.

**June 27th, 1943**

Me and Mikey decided to join the army. The war's been on a while, so they need soldiers, accepting kids as young as Mikey, barely 18. It also means that supplies are short. Even so, somehow, between the 2 of us, we managed to get several gallons of gasoline and a book of matches.

We had already taken everything that mattered to us out of the house, and left it with Alicia, Mikey's long-term girlfriend. It was the anniversary of our mother's death. It was growing near the almost exact hour, as far as I could tell, that she had died. I shared a look with my brother and nodded. There was no way out of it.

We had lived 13 years with the knowledge that our own father killed our mother. THe murderer and his fake new wife lay asleep inside. Mikey brought me out of my reverie. "Let's do it." He said. I nodded, my mouth dry. I grabbed one gas can, while he took the other. We splashed the gas onto the ground around the house and the sides of the damned building itself, making my eyes and nose sting.

We met around the back of the house, tossing the cans to the ground. I took the book of matches out of my pocket, pulling a single match out. My hands were shaking. Whether it was fright or excitement, I couldn't tell, and I didn't care.

Finally, I got the match to light up. The wind nearly blew the tiny flame out. Me and Mikey held out breath, but it didn't go out. When it had recovered sufficiently, I threw it at the house. The tiny flame hit the line of gas. WIthin minutes, the house was surrounded by flames. As we stood watching, the wind blew the fire onto the house. In a heartbeat, it was entirely engulfed. We stood watching the flames lick at the white paint, hearing the screams inside, smelling burning wood. After a while, Mikey said, "You know, the sun's coming up."

I looked up, and sure enough, there was a streak of light on the horizon. "Let's get out of here." I said. We turned and started walking away from the house. "Mama, we're burning up the night you died." Mikey said, sounding on the verge of tears. I found myself in a similar condition, barely able to choke out drunkenly, "Here's to you and your bright baby blues." A near maniac grin followed on the heels of that statement.

"Gee... I don't think her eyes were blue." Mikey said quietly. Now that he mentioned it, I couldn't quite remember, what color were they really? I can't seem to remember anymore. Even so, I didn't look back.


	2. Ghost Of You

**This is part 2 of 5. This part is based off the My Chemical Romance song, Ghost of You. Might help to listen to the song while reading this.**  
  
 __  
My Dearest Alicia,  
Tomorrow I'm being sent onto the front lines of battle. I can't help but feel that I won't make it out alive. I don't have much time to write this, because I have to be up early for deployment tomorrow. While I'm not sure what to say, I want you to know that I love you with all my heart, and intend to marry you if I survive this war.  
  
If I don't make it out alive, there's something that I want you to know. When my father's house burned down, it was because Gerard and I set it on fire. He says that our father deserved it, because he killed our mother. The thing is, I can't really remember that night very well. Some days, I wonder if it ever happened at all.   
  
All my love,   
Mikey   
  
**June 27, 1944**  
  
We were in these boats headed to the shore. I was in a boat with Mikey, and our friends, Ray and Frank. We landed, in a hail of bullets, and began to charge ahead, returning fire, while trying to seek shelter to avoid being hit. It was a tricky, complicated dance that we had no practice in, and that most of us would not survive.   
  
I had the irresistible urge to be rid of my younger brother, once and for all. It's always been there, but now, I could get away with it. Before I could do anything about it, however, Mikey slipped, and fell into the line of fire.   
  
He got hit in the chest, and fell, screaming. I lunged towards him, but Frank's arms around my waist held me back. He was screaming at me, "Don't do it! You'll die!" He was right though. What good would I be to my brother if I were dead or wounded? When there was a momentary break in the firing, Ray, the closest, crawled towards my fallen brother, a hand automatically going to take his pulse.   
  
There was a moment, before Ray looked up at me, a somber look on his face, and shook his head. I threw my head back, and let out a high-pitched scream, just like a dying rabbit. I was the one who suggested that he sign up for the army in the first place. It was my fault that he was currently laying there covered in mud and his own blood. What had I done?


	3. 1959

**This is part 3 of 5. This part is based off the Gaslight Anthem's song, 1959. Might help if you listened to the song while reading this.**

It's been years since that day when Gerard saw his own brother died. He tried insisting that it was his fault, that he was a murderer. Even when the commanding officer heard him, he could only offer his condolences and insisted that he was not responsible for what happened, because the odds of surviving war on the front lines was very slim.   
  
Even though he hadn't been wounded, the strain hadn't left Gerard. He show up from his dreams at night often, screaming bloody murder. He had deep circles and huge bags below his eyes, which bore a haunted look. Every time he closed his eyes, he was haunted by death. That of his mother and brother, his brothers in arms and enemies alike.   
  
After the war, Gerard married a woman named Lindsey, and they had a single child together, a girl they named Bandit Lee Way. While she was a good mother, Lindsey was outspoken, and while she had worked a position in one of the factories during the war, she was loathe to leave it, glad of the somewhat equality that she had enjoyed there in comparison to men. It was easy to assume that in the 60's, she would be a part of the feminist movement.   
  
Gerard's new job wasn't nearly as dangerous as being a soldier, but was certainly more exciting than a desk job. He was now a singer in a blues band that was located in his own home town.   
  
**June 27, 1959**  
  
Today, there was going to be a small concert, held in the park just down the street from his house. He asked Lindsey to join him. She said that while she couldn't attend the whole thing, she'd join them about halfway through the set.   
  
He was onstage now, making his way through the second or third song. High on adrenaline, he seemed to be able to forget all those terrible memories that had haunted him beginning about 30 years beforehand. This high above everything, it seemed like nothing could touch him. He was part of something larger than himself once again, and he no longer had to depend on himself solely.   
  
Just as that thought passed through his head, the guitar chords were shattered by gunshots. They popped off from somewhere down the street, the very same street that Gerard lived on.   
  
Since it was so near, everyone began to scream, diving for cover, hands over heads. There was squealing feedback as the guitars and microphones toppled over, following the musicians who used them. Gerard was face down on the stage like the rest of them. After a few minutes of slight commotion and fear, the first people began to pick themselves off the ground.   
  
Upon seeing this, Gerard got up, pelting down the street as fast as his legs would take him. The wind whipped through his hair, stinging his eyes. Not even halfway down the street, his lungs were on fire, he had a stitch in his side, and his legs were killing him. But he didn't care. The only thing that mattered to him was getting home, and making sure his wife and kid were aright.  
  
In front of his house, he paused to take a breath, surveying the damage around him. Several houses had been hit, including his. The black bullet holes and shattered windows hinted at the damages inside. He noticed his own kitchen window was nearly gone as he opened the front door, hands shaking.   
  
"Lindsey? Bandit?" He asked, his voice faltering just like his hands. He'd already lost most of the people that he cared about. These were the last 2 he had. he couldn't lose them too. He heard nothing reply. In the kitchen, he saw the shards of glass scattered in the floor from the window, with Lindsey laying on the floor.   
  
The gray housedress she wore was soaked in blood, most of it concentrated on the chest area. If she was breathing, the movement was so slight that Gerard didn't even notice it. He shook her lightly, noticing that her skin was still warm. The tears began to fall, slowly and silently at first. "Were you scared when the metal hit the glass?" He choked out. But it wouldn't stop there.   
  
"Did you hear your favorite song one last time? I was playing a show down the road when your spirit l-le-left your body!" he practically howled out. The noise brought Bandit down to the kitchen, just in time to see her mother's lifeless body, her father wailing like he'd lost his mind, and everything covered in bright red.   
  
Outside, several ambulances and what looked like the entire fleet of police cars were pulling up onto the street. The cops began to canvas the area, looked for the injured or culprits. A police officer, seeing the door ajar, entered the house. In the kitchen, he saw Lindsey bloody on the floor, and immediately yelled for a medic.   
  
He pulled Gerard away from his wife's corpse, shooing Bandit out of the room. The medics thundered in with a stretcher, checking her body for it's non-existent pulse. Not finding it, they hoisted her onto a stretcher, carting her away, not even bothering to cover her body with a sheet. Gerard followed them, on shaking legs.   
  
They'd already loaded her into the ambulance, and Gerard was about to follow her, when one of the medics told him, "I'm sorry sir, but she didn't make it." Then, they closed the door and peeled off. " 'm sorry I couldn't go with you." He whispered. He fell to his knees, wailing loudly. A passing EMT turned to him and asked, "Sir? Are you injured?", stooping down to Gerard's level to look the distraught man in the eyes. Those green eyes seemed to look right through him. "Sir?"  
  
"My wife, they killed her, they killed my Lindsey!"


	4. Annabel

**Based off Alesana's song Annabel.**

  
  
**1969**  
  
The reality is, none of that happened as report to you. Interesting, right? My father Gerard wasn't even half as innocent as he claimed. Yes, his mother, my paternal grandmother, died when he was 8. But not by being murdered by his father after an argument.   
  
**1930**  
What Gerard heart wasn't far from the truth. What he didn't realize was that there was a third person in the room with his parents. The man was a petty thief, and had a history of battery and assault. What they'd heard was Mr. and Mrs. Way trying to convince the good for nothing man to leave their house and family alone. When Mrs. Way told them that they had nothing to give him, which was true, he slapped her.   
  
Then, because he couldn't get what he wanted, he brought out a gun. Mr Way panicked and tried to grab it away. In the ensuing struggle, it went off, firing into Mrs. Way's chest. Then, the crook hit Mr. Way a harsh blow over the head, knocking him out cold.   
  
Gerard was right to run and pretend to be asleep. If not, he and his brother may have been killed just like their mother.   
  
Gerard's mind blocked out the incident, and the ensuing investigation and funeral, probably because of all the trauma associated with it. My uncle Mikey was too young to remember much, just tiny fragments. Gerard lied to him, over and over, for the sheer sake of being able to manipulate someone, and to have an ally against his percieved enemy, their father. Mikey only went along with it, because he wanted his brother to approve of him, to like him. In the end, it would be his downfall.  
  
 **1935**  
  
Mikey never had anything against his father, until he was about 6 or 7, and his brother had begun to slowly poison and corrupt him. I don't think my uncle realized what was really happening, until years later, if he ever caught on at all. Gerard was that insidious about it.   
  
When Mr. Way remarried, he wasn't trying to replace the dearly deceased, he was just offering some sort of mother figure for the boys. He never pushed his new wife on them, never said they'd have a new mother, or that she would replace the dead woman, like Gerard had so eloquently told Mikey. The new wife hadn't intentionally tried to replace her, only tried doing some of the things that the boy's father had told her that they liked. Instead of making them happy, her intention, it infuriated Gerard, making him also turn Mikey against her. She was just an innocent victim in all this.  
  
 **1943**  
  
The night the house burned down, Mikey wasn't a willing participant in it. Gerard had collared him, shoving a gun below his chin and said that if he didn't do as he was told, he and Alicia would be dead within the hour. Gerard also told him that their father and stepmother would make it out alive. He had shoved the can of gas into his brother's hands, screaming at him to do it, or have his brains blown out.   
  
Even though by now, Gerard had successfully poisoned Mikey against his parents, he was still too full of morals to want them dead. After Gerard make his younger brother soak the house and part of the yard in a full circle of gasoline, he lit a match. The slight glow of flame illuminated his crazed grin. Mikey was genuinely scared for him life. He threw it, laughing insanely. The flames sprang up near immediately, eating at the house. The paint began to bubble and sizzle from the heat. Mikey made as if to lunge at the house,trying to rescue his parents.   
  
Gerard held him back, and no matter how much Mikey squirmed, he couldn't get free. "You said they'd get out alive!" He shrieked. "Musta lied then." Gerard had said, noncommittally, as though it was just lying about taking the last slice of pie, not killing someone.   
  
Hearing the screams from inside, and being unable to do anything about it, Mikey began to cry uncontrollably. The smell of burning flesh was sickening. Eventually, when the house was just a charred wreck, and the flames had died down, Gerard made as if to leave. Mikey fell to his knees in front the house, sobbing. There was no way that anyone could've survived the flames. "Come on." Gerard said, yanking one of his brother's spindly arms. "No!" Mikey said, trying to take his arm back. "What's the matter with you?" The elder man snarled.   
  
"They're dead!" Mikey blubbered out. "That doesn't matter, they fucking deserved it!" With that, Gerard yanked his brother to his feet, dragging him away.   
  
**1944**  
  
During the war, most of the letters that Alicia received weren't of Mikey's own doing. While Gerard wrote some of them, the majority were in Mikey's handwriting, but not in his voice. How? His elder brother was telling him exactly what to write, chapter and verse, to make sure that Mikey couldn't let out the secret of what they'd done. The final letter, written just before Mikey's death was done hastily, in the lavatory, his messy, rapid scrawl nearly illegible.   
  
That day in the war, Mikey didn't slip. He was pushed by his own brother. Gerard's hatred had finally taken over, it seemed. He had snapped, and shoved his own brother into the line of fire. When the shot that the young man received had failed to kill him, the elder male had stepped over and shot him twice in the back of the head.   
  
When the commanding officer had caught wind of what happened, and how shaken up Gerard was because of it, and especially since Gerard claimed it to be a 'mercy killing', done 'in the heat of battle', and that 'he didn't know what he was doing', instead of being locked into a jail cell, he was simply given a dishonorable discharge. Even though I wouldn't have been born if he had, I wish every day that he had been caught then. But he wasn't. It wouldn't be til another incident nearly 15 years later that he would be.   
  
**1959**  
  
My father wasn't everything that you believed him to be. You thought him a man that had lost so much early in his life, killing only out of retribution seeing as there was no justice forthcoming, as a man who moved on after the war, even after losing so much. You saw him devastated by the senseless murder of his wife. But that couldn't have been further from the truth.   
  
After the war, Gerard became an alcoholic. He drank like a fish, from the moment he awoke, to the minute he passed out. If he didn't have a bottle in his hand, he was doing his very best to get one there. And when he was drunk, he was the meanest son of a gun that you ever had the misfortune of meeting.   
  
To be entirely honest, I can't recall a time that he was ever kind and fatherly. More often, I remember all the times he had yelled and screamed profanities and insults, all the things he had thrown and broken, the numerous bruises that he had left on both my mother and I. But for some reason, we never bothered reaching out for help, I don't know why. Maybe it could've saved her. But you do have to give her credit, she did her very best to try and protect me from him.   
  
But that fateful day, when everything went wrong, nothing was as it seemed.   
  
Yes, Gerard was 'working' as a singer in a local blues band that had popped up in the town. I say working with the little air quotes because he was so drunk most of the time that he couldn't even remember his own name, let alone the lyrics to the songs. I guess that the only reason that they kept him on was because when he was sober, he had a great voice.   
  
That day, he was drunk as usual. He had walked down to the park where they were supposed to be playing. Seeing him stumbling about unsteadily, and seeing the glazed and unfocused look in his eyes, Ray, their lead guitarist, suggested that Gerard go back home, as he was in no state to play. He even offered to help him back to him house. It wasn't said in a malicious tone, because I had met Ray several times prior to that day, and several times since, and he's a fairly easy-going and laid-back kind of guy. What the poor man got for his troubles was more profanity than I've ever said in my entire life, and several death threats, before Gerard stumbled away.   
  
I don't know how he made it home, but I wish that he had just passed out on the street, or fallen and broken a limb, anything to have delayed it. I remember being upstairs in my room, and my mother was downstairs in the kitchen, no doubt making dinner. Then, I heard the front door slam open, and my father come crashing in. There was the sound of the vase on the side table just inside the house falling and shattering against the floor, then sounds of things being knocked over, in a path towards the kitchen.   
  
"C'n ya b'lieve tha' fugger Ray? Fugger says I'm too drung ta play!" Gerard had slurred. I heard my mother's voice, calm and soothing as always say, "Why don't you have a seat? You look like you're about to fall over."   
  
"Fugg you!" Gerard had spat. Then, there was the noise of him stumbling off to the study. He still had his old service revolver in a box in there, with ammo. There was no way this could end up good. Then, there was the noise of him going back to the kitchen. My mother must've seen the gun, because then she asked, "Gerard? What are you doing with that?"  
  
"Gunna teach ya a lesh-shun ya aint gone ferget!" Gerard said, in his nearly incomprehensible drunken guttural manner. Then, there was the noise of several bangs, and two thumps, like that of bodies hitting the ground. After not hearing anything for several minutes, I snuck down to the kitchen.   
  
My mother was laying on the floor, covered in blood, dead or unconscious, I couldn't tell. What scared me was my father sitting beside her, singing to her. I couldn't tell what he was singing, it was in a language that I couldn't understand, Italian or maybe even Latin. I don't know how long I stood in the doorway, until paramedics and police burst into the door. I was bundled into the back of a cop car, and told to wait there for my own safety.   
  
I remember seeing my mother being carted into the back of the ambulance, covered in a white sheet. I was too young to understand what it meant at that time, but all I knew is that it wasn't good. I saw my father go running out of the house, trying to jump into the ambulance with her, but they shut the doors before he could. Then, he caught sight of me in the back of the police cruiser and ran towards me, only to be tackled to the ground by police officers.   
  
**1969**  
  
How did I manage to figure all that out? Through a bunch of letters from family members, researching old newspaper articles, family records, things like that. It wasn't easy to do, but I managed to do it anyways.   
  
Well, it's been 10 years to that day. Ever since that day, I've been living with my mother's mother. And every June 27th, I go pay my father a visit. He's in New Jersey State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. But this time, something's different. Now that I know the full story, the truth of just how much of a monster he is, I can't just let him survive, knowing fully well all the horrors that he's done.  
  
Pulling up outside the doors, I smile at my grandma, and tell her that I'll be out in a few minutes. She smiles back tensely. She never goes to visit him. She hates him for killing her only child. I walk inside, up to the nurse's desk. "I'm here to see Gerard Way." I say, smiling sweetly.   
  
The nurse on duty gives me a pitying look. She's probably already heard of my by now, the little girl that comes to visit the father that murdered her mother every so often. She probably pities me. Well, she shouldn't.   
  
I know the drill all too well. I follow her down one hallway after another, coming into a small cell of a room, sparsely decorated. In it, is Gerard Way, his hair starting to go gray, and his skin has an unhealthy pallor from a lack of sunlight. "Bandit Lee Way." He says, his voice mocking.   
  
The nurse has left by this time. I simply smile, and walk over to him, sliding the pen knife down my sleeve. He looks at me curiously. I've never been one to approach him. One quick movement, and I slice his throat open completely. There's a look of shock in his eyes, the green orbs that match mine, as I'm spattered by his blood. It's warm, with a slightly coppery smell, like pennies. "That's for killing my grandparents, and my uncle and my mother." I say, as he topples off the bed, unable to even hold his hands to his neck in an attempt to staunch the blood flow. Damn, I love straightjackets!   
  
Grinning, I drop the penknife and walk out the hospital. Nobody tries to stop me. Getting back into the car, my grandmother takes one look at me, and instead of flipping out like any normal grandmother, she just says, "Don't get it all over my car, you're covered in it, and you've ruined your coat." I can only laugh and say, "Sorry Grandma." We both chuckle at this, because we both know that I'm not. And she's not disturbed by it in the slightest. In fact, she's happy this happened. But it's all for a good reason.   
  
Right?

  
 **1969**  
  
The reality is, none of that happened as report to you. Interesting, right? My father Gerard wasn't even half as innocent as he claimed. Yes, his mother, my paternal grandmother, died when he was 8. But not by being murdered by his father after an argument.   
  
**1930**  
What Gerard heart wasn't far from the truth. What he didn't realize was that there was a third person in the room with his parents. The man was a petty thief, and had a history of battery and assault. What they'd heard was Mr. and Mrs. Way trying to convince the good for nothing man to leave their house and family alone. When Mrs. Way told them that they had nothing to give him, which was true, he slapped her.   
  
Then, because he couldn't get what he wanted, he brought out a gun. Mr Way panicked and tried to grab it away. In the ensuing struggle, it went off, firing into Mrs. Way's chest. Then, the crook hit Mr. Way a harsh blow over the head, knocking him out cold.   
  
Gerard was right to run and pretend to be asleep. If not, he and his brother may have been killed just like their mother.   
  
Gerard's mind blocked out the incident, and the ensuing investigation and funeral, probably because of all the trauma associated with it. My uncle Mikey was too young to remember much, just tiny fragments. Gerard lied to him, over and over, for the sheer sake of being able to manipulate someone, and to have an ally against his percieved enemy, their father. Mikey only went along with it, because he wanted his brother to approve of him, to like him. In the end, it would be his downfall.  
  
 **1935**  
  
Mikey never had anything against his father, until he was about 6 or 7, and his brother had begun to slowly poison and corrupt him. I don't think my uncle realized what was really happening, until years later, if he ever caught on at all. Gerard was that insidious about it.   
  
When Mr. Way remarried, he wasn't trying to replace the dearly deceased, he was just offering some sort of mother figure for the boys. He never pushed his new wife on them, never said they'd have a new mother, or that she would replace the dead woman, like Gerard had so eloquently told Mikey. The new wife hadn't intentionally tried to replace her, only tried doing some of the things that the boy's father had told her that they liked. Instead of making them happy, her intention, it infuriated Gerard, making him also turn Mikey against her. She was just an innocent victim in all this.  
  
 **1943**  
  
The night the house burned down, Mikey wasn't a willing participant in it. Gerard had collared him, shoving a gun below his chin and said that if he didn't do as he was told, he and Alicia would be dead within the hour. Gerard also told him that their father and stepmother would make it out alive. He had shoved the can of gas into his brother's hands, screaming at him to do it, or have his brains blown out.   
  
Even though by now, Gerard had successfully poisoned Mikey against his parents, he was still too full of morals to want them dead. After Gerard make his younger brother soak the house and part of the yard in a full circle of gasoline, he lit a match. The slight glow of flame illuminated his crazed grin. Mikey was genuinely scared for him life. He threw it, laughing insanely. The flames sprang up near immediately, eating at the house. The paint began to bubble and sizzle from the heat. Mikey made as if to lunge at the house,trying to rescue his parents.   
  
Gerard held him back, and no matter how much Mikey squirmed, he couldn't get free. "You said they'd get out alive!" He shrieked. "Musta lied then." Gerard had said, noncommittally, as though it was just lying about taking the last slice of pie, not killing someone.   
  
Hearing the screams from inside, and being unable to do anything about it, Mikey began to cry uncontrollably. The smell of burning flesh was sickening. Eventually, when the house was just a charred wreck, and the flames had died down, Gerard made as if to leave. Mikey fell to his knees in front the house, sobbing. There was no way that anyone could've survived the flames. "Come on." Gerard said, yanking one of his brother's spindly arms. "No!" Mikey said, trying to take his arm back. "What's the matter with you?" The elder man snarled.   
  
"They're dead!" Mikey blubbered out. "That doesn't matter, they fucking deserved it!" With that, Gerard yanked his brother to his feet, dragging him away.   
  
**1944**  
  
During the war, most of the letters that Alicia received weren't of Mikey's own doing. While Gerard wrote some of them, the majority were in Mikey's handwriting, but not in his voice. How? His elder brother was telling him exactly what to write, chapter and verse, to make sure that Mikey couldn't let out the secret of what they'd done. The final letter, written just before Mikey's death was done hastily, in the lavatory, his messy, rapid scrawl nearly illegible.   
  
That day in the war, Mikey didn't slip. He was pushed by his own brother. Gerard's hatred had finally taken over, it seemed. He had snapped, and shoved his own brother into the line of fire. When the shot that the young man received had failed to kill him, the elder male had stepped over and shot him twice in the back of the head.   
  
When the commanding officer had caught wind of what happened, and how shaken up Gerard was because of it, and especially since Gerard claimed it to be a 'mercy killing', done 'in the heat of battle', and that 'he didn't know what he was doing', instead of being locked into a jail cell, he was simply given a dishonorable discharge. Even though I wouldn't have been born if he had, I wish every day that he had been caught then. But he wasn't. It wouldn't be til another incident nearly 15 years later that he would be.   
  
**1959**  
  
My father wasn't everything that you believed him to be. You thought him a man that had lost so much early in his life, killing only out of retribution seeing as there was no justice forthcoming, as a man who moved on after the war, even after losing so much. You saw him devastated by the senseless murder of his wife. But that couldn't have been further from the truth.   
  
After the war, Gerard became an alcoholic. He drank like a fish, from the moment he awoke, to the minute he passed out. If he didn't have a bottle in his hand, he was doing his very best to get one there. And when he was drunk, he was the meanest son of a gun that you ever had the misfortune of meeting.   
  
To be entirely honest, I can't recall a time that he was ever kind and fatherly. More often, I remember all the times he had yelled and screamed profanities and insults, all the things he had thrown and broken, the numerous bruises that he had left on both my mother and I. But for some reason, we never bothered reaching out for help, I don't know why. Maybe it could've saved her. But you do have to give her credit, she did her very best to try and protect me from him.   
  
But that fateful day, when everything went wrong, nothing was as it seemed.   
  
Yes, Gerard was 'working' as a singer in a local blues band that had popped up in the town. I say working with the little air quotes because he was so drunk most of the time that he couldn't even remember his own name, let alone the lyrics to the songs. I guess that the only reason that they kept him on was because when he was sober, he had a great voice.   
  
That day, he was drunk as usual. He had walked down to the park where they were supposed to be playing. Seeing him stumbling about unsteadily, and seeing the glazed and unfocused look in his eyes, Ray, their lead guitarist, suggested that Gerard go back home, as he was in no state to play. He even offered to help him back to him house. It wasn't said in a malicious tone, because I had met Ray several times prior to that day, and several times since, and he's a fairly easy-going and laid-back kind of guy. What the poor man got for his troubles was more profanity than I've ever said in my entire life, and several death threats, before Gerard stumbled away.   
  
I don't know how he made it home, but I wish that he had just passed out on the street, or fallen and broken a limb, anything to have delayed it. I remember being upstairs in my room, and my mother was downstairs in the kitchen, no doubt making dinner. Then, I heard the front door slam open, and my father come crashing in. There was the sound of the vase on the side table just inside the house falling and shattering against the floor, then sounds of things being knocked over, in a path towards the kitchen.   
  
"C'n ya b'lieve tha' fugger Ray? Fugger says I'm too drung ta play!" Gerard had slurred. I heard my mother's voice, calm and soothing as always say, "Why don't you have a seat? You look like you're about to fall over."   
  
"Fugg you!" Gerard had spat. Then, there was the noise of him stumbling off to the study. He still had his old service revolver in a box in there, with ammo. There was no way this could end up good. Then, there was the noise of him going back to the kitchen. My mother must've seen the gun, because then she asked, "Gerard? What are you doing with that?"  
  
"Gunna teach ya a lesh-shun ya aint gone ferget!" Gerard said, in his nearly incomprehensible drunken guttural manner. Then, there was the noise of several bangs, and two thumps, like that of bodies hitting the ground. After not hearing anything for several minutes, I snuck down to the kitchen.   
  
My mother was laying on the floor, covered in blood, dead or unconscious, I couldn't tell. What scared me was my father sitting beside her, singing to her. I couldn't tell what he was singing, it was in a language that I couldn't understand, Italian or maybe even Latin. I don't know how long I stood in the doorway, until paramedics and police burst into the door. I was bundled into the back of a cop car, and told to wait there for my own safety.   
  
I remember seeing my mother being carted into the back of the ambulance, covered in a white sheet. I was too young to understand what it meant at that time, but all I knew is that it wasn't good. I saw my father go running out of the house, trying to jump into the ambulance with her, but they shut the doors before he could. Then, he caught sight of me in the back of the police cruiser and ran towards me, only to be tackled to the ground by police officers.   
  
**1969**  
  
How did I manage to figure all that out? Through a bunch of letters from family members, researching old newspaper articles, family records, things like that. It wasn't easy to do, but I managed to do it anyways.   
  
Well, it's been 10 years to that day. Ever since that day, I've been living with my mother's mother. And every June 27th, I go pay my father a visit. He's in New Jersey State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. But this time, something's different. Now that I know the full story, the truth of just how much of a monster he is, I can't just let him survive, knowing fully well all the horrors that he's done.  
  
Pulling up outside the doors, I smile at my grandma, and tell her that I'll be out in a few minutes. She smiles back tensely. She never goes to visit him. She hates him for killing her only child. I walk inside, up to the nurse's desk. "I'm here to see Gerard Way." I say, smiling sweetly.   
  
The nurse on duty gives me a pitying look. She's probably already heard of my by now, the little girl that comes to visit the father that murdered her mother every so often. She probably pities me. Well, she shouldn't.   
  
I know the drill all too well. I follow her down one hallway after another, coming into a small cell of a room, sparsely decorated. In it, is Gerard Way, his hair starting to go gray, and his skin has an unhealthy pallor from a lack of sunlight. "Bandit Lee Way." He says, his voice mocking.   
  
The nurse has left by this time. I simply smile, and walk over to him, sliding the pen knife down my sleeve. He looks at me curiously. I've never been one to approach him. One quick movement, and I slice his throat open completely. There's a look of shock in his eyes, the green orbs that match mine, as I'm spattered by his blood. It's warm, with a slightly coppery smell, like pennies. "That's for killing my grandparents, and my uncle and my mother." I say, as he topples off the bed, unable to even hold his hands to his neck in an attempt to staunch the blood flow. Damn, I love straightjackets!   
  
Grinning, I drop the penknife and walk out the hospital. Nobody tries to stop me. Getting back into the car, my grandmother takes one look at me, and instead of flipping out like any normal grandmother, she just says, "Don't get it all over my car, you're covered in it, and you've ruined your coat." I can only laugh and say, "Sorry Grandma." We both chuckle at this, because we both know that I'm not. And she's not disturbed by it in the slightest. In fact, she's happy this happened. But it's all for a good reason.   
  
Right?


	5. Finale

**This is the final mindfuck in all of this. However, this was written without any musical assistance.**

**  
**Come with me, dear reader, and let's pull back the veil.  
  
Gerard Way looks tired, and unkept. Dark purple bruises have bloomed below his eyes, which are so bloodshot that even extra strength visine couldn't help. His hair is greasy and messy, and looks like he's run his hands through it a thousand times over. His nails are bitten ot the quick, and he hasn't changed his clothes or showered in a few days.   
  
His wife, sitting nect to him, doesn't look much better, her own hair and clothing rumpled in disarray, and whatever little makeup she has left on her face is the several streaks that run down her cheeks.   
  
Together, she and her husband face the doctor sitting across the desk from them. They haven't left the hospital in 4 days. "Mr. and Mrs. Way, it doesn't look good." The doctor says frankly. That's all it took for Lindsey to double over, a fresh wave of tears overtaking her. Her husband patted her back, and the doctor slid a box of tissues across the desk to her.   
  
Giving her a few moments to compose herself, he said, "If she doesn't wake up within the next 24 hours, it's doubtful she ever will. More to the fact, her brainwaves seem to indicate that she's dreaming. If she dies in that dream, either she will wake up, or she'll die."  
  
My dearest readers, you're probably wondering what's going on, aren't you? Well I'll tell you. Be ready for the final illusion to fall away, for your blinded eyes to see. Come with me and let's pull back the veil. Nothing you believed to be true until this time is fact. Everything has just been an elaborate hoax.  
  
4 days ago, young Bandit Lee Way overdosed, a fairly toxic mix of muscle relaters, aspirin, sleeping pills, and vodka. Her small body lays in a cold bed in an impersonal room in the hospital's pediactric ward, hooked up to a heart monitor, IV's and a ventilator, but her mind isn't there.   
  
To her, the year isn't 2022, it's 1969. To her, most her family is dead, killed by her father. To her, none of this exists. Her father's band mates aren't anyone important. She's never met most of them, and never spoken to them more than once or twice if she has. She barely knew her mother. She's a murderer. SHe just killed her father.   
  
_The year is 1969, and I've just killed my father, because to this very day, 10 years ago, he killed my mother, and before her, my uncle, and before that, my grandfather and step-grandmother. Right now, I'm in my grandmother's car, and we've left the hell hole that I killed my father in. We're driving off into the sunset, far away from here, with the cops hot on our tail, firing their guns at us. I think I've just been hit._   
  
**FIN**


End file.
